Over the last two years, the potential for high-profile cyber crime has increased significantly. There have been a number of very high-profile cases where sensitive personal (and business) data was compromised in cyber attacks. Now, hundreds of experts in cyber security across the European Union are currently participating in a daylong simulation to combat cyber attacks.

The cyber security simulation took place yesterday and was called Cyber Europe 2012. The cyber security exercises included 400 experts from major financial institutions, telecommunications companies, internet service providers, local governments, and national governments across Europe. The exercise had the experts facing over 1,200 separate cyber incidents including 30,000 e-mails during a simulated DDoS campaign.

The exercise was designed to test how the security experts would respond and cooperate in the event of a massive cyber attack against public and corporate computer systems in Europe. The planners of the exercise say that if the attacks were real, they could cause massive disruption for millions of citizens in Europe and have the potential to cause millions of euros in damage to the economy.

European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes said, "This is the first time banks and internet companies have been part of an EU-wide cyber-attack exercise. This cooperation is essential given the growing scale and sophistication of cyber-attacks. Working together at European level to keep the internet and other essential infrastructures running is what today's exercise is all about."

Experts from the World Economic Forum estimate that in the next decade, there is a 10% risk of a major critical information infrastructure incident with the potential to cause €200 billion in economic damage. The exercise was held to help train experts on how to respond and cooperate to prevent such an attack.